Toronto Raptors
The problem: It's too bad about Andrea Bargnani's nagging leg injuries because he was really playing well under Raptors first-year coach Dwane Casey. Nevertheless, the sharp-shooting Italian seems to have cemented his place as part of Toronto's core for the foreseeable future. The problem is that it's hard to define with any clarity who might make up the remainder of that core. The Raptors have a couple of young players with promise in DeMar DeRozan and Ed Davis, but it's far from a given that either of that duo will develop into a foundation player.

So the Raptors remain very much in asset-acquisition mode. If you believe the rumor mill, there is a lot of interest in Raptors point guard Jose Calderon, who has played well this season. If Toronto moves him, the team's cap position will be wide open the next few years. However, the quandary for Bryan Colangelo and Ed Stefanski is that they need to get real talent in return for any trade because it's not going to be easy to attract elite free agents to Toronto no matter how much money the Raptors can pony up. A more likely scenario involves sending the expiring deal of Leandro Barbosa away for a draft pick.

The fix: The Raptors have some cap space available, which could in theory allow them to trade Calderon for a star-level player without the salaries matching up. However, the kind of high-impact, cost-controlled talent the Raptors need simply isn't available on the trade market. Rumors had the Raptors making overtures to restricted free agent Wilson Chandler (combined 7.6 projected WARP the next two seasons) and that would have been a nice pickup. But now that March 1 has come and gone, the Nuggets are the only team that can snag Chandler before the summer. So in their quest to add star power, the Raptors need to lose and lose big. The more lottery balls in the hopper that might pop up and allow Toronto to snag Kentucky's Anthony Davis, the better.